mon circumstance?"

"Heartless and cruel!" sobbed Constance, falling upon the sofa,
"hast thou not made me what I am?"

This accusation, intended by the author to be leveled at the
traitor lover, quite took him aback when directed, with so much
aptness, too, at his respectable self. But whom but himself
could he blame, if, when common sense demanded only civility
and complaisance, she persisted in adhering to the tragic and
sentimental? He was provoked that he had not noticed this defect
in time to remedy it; yet he had once considered Constance as,
perhaps, the completest triumph of his genius! There seemed to
be something particularly disenchanting in the atmosphere of that
study.

"I'm afraid you're a failure, ma'am, after all," sighed the
author, eyeing her disconsolately. "You're so one-sided!"

At this heartless observation the lady gave a harrowing shriek,
thereby summoning to her side a broad-shouldered young fellow,
clad in soldier's garb, with a countenance betokening much
boldness and determination. He faced the author with an angry
frown, which the latter at once recognized as being that of
Constance's brother Sam.

"Now then, old bloke!" sang out that young gentleman, "what new
deviltry are you up to? Down on your knees and beg her pardon,
or, by George! I'll run you through the body!"

On this character the author had expended much thought and care.
He was the type of the hardy and bold adventurer, rough and
unpolished, perhaps, but of true and sterling metal, who, by dint
of his vigorous common sense and honest, energetic nature, should
at once clear and lighten whatever in the atmosphere of the story
was obscure and sombre; and, by the salutary contrast of his
fresh and rugged character with the delicate or morbid traits
of his fellow beings, lend a graceful symmetry to the whole. The
sentence Sam had just delivered with so much emphasis ought to
have been addressed to the traitor lover, when discovered in the
act of inconstancy, and, so given, would have been effective and
dramatic. But at a juncture like the present, the author felt it
to be simply ludicrous, and had he not been so mortified, would
have laughed outright!

"Don't make a fool of yourself, Sam," remonstrated he. "Reflect
whom you're addressing, and in what company you are, and do try
and talk like a civilized being."

"Come, come! no palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous
tone (to do him justice, he had never been t